External DVD Burner

Ok cliffs:
Friend has priceless pictures (~15GB worth) on ready to die computer
Need to backup/save every single one of them
Thought about external HD, many said no as prone to death
Reccommended to burn to DVD
Said computer has no DVD burning capabilities (only CD, in which 15GB would be around 100 CD's?)
Thinking of buying external DVD burner, but predicaments are:

Computer probably does NOT have USB 2.0 and most external DVD burners use this - what will be the effects of using regular USB with USB2.0 device?

With only USB1.1, you'll be limited to less than .5x DVD burning speed. I don't know if it'll even work. 15 GB / 700 MB = 21.4 CDs

My recommendation:
1) Get a USB hard drive.
2) Backup the pictures to that. Don't delete them from the internal disk. Now you have two copies of the pictures.
3) Get a new computer with an internal DVD-RW.
4) Copy pictures from USB disk to the new computer's internal disk and burn them to DVD. Now you have 3 copies, 4 if you count the old hard drive.

I wouldn't waste money on an external DVD burner when the real solution is a new computer with a much faster (and cheaper) internal DVD burner. Once you have the new computer, the USB hard drive and the DVD burner make it easy to have redundant backups. Use the hard drive for frequent backups and the DVD for less-frequent backups to keep off-site.